In today’s Gospel Our Lord continues to pray to the Father for the disciples who he must soon leave behind, just as Paul is saying his final farewell to the elders of Ephesus in the First Reading. Part of human life is the moment where our work here ends and we go, God-willing, to meet Our Heavenly Father. As believers we know that even then we’ll still be involved in the lives of those we’ve left behind: they’re not untouched by having us as a part of their life, and if we persevere in the faith and join the saints in Heaven we can continue to look down upon them from above and to intercede for them, just as Jesus does in today’s Gospel and does now for all eternity at the right hand of the Father.
The one thing that can go wrong in this plan is not reaching where God wants us to go: Jesus warns against the influence and action of the “world” and the “Evil One” and he knows we need God to protect us from the evil that always put obstacles in our path. Paul entrusts the elders and the flock to God so that they stand firm against threats to the flock, threats that see them as nothing more than a free lunch, and those who present appealing lies and false teachings as if they were true. We must be vigilant, but we also know that God is on our side. Jesus may not live among us in the way he did two thousand years ago, but he is still spiritually and sacramentally with us, and his Gospel continues to shape our lives as the truth that will protect us from the wolves, the “world”, the Evil One, and from false teaching, aided by our pastors and deacons.
Let’s pray for our pastors and deacons today, and that we all remain true to the Gospel and have the strength to resist whatever wants to come between us and Our Lord.
Readings: Acts 20:28–38; Psalm 68:29–30, 33–36b; John 17:11b–19.